Shanty2Chic Social Media Followers
Instagram: 512,000
Pinterest: 441,091
Facebook: 160,816
Twitter: 10,700
Google+: 1,501
YouTube: 74,860 subscribers
shanty-2-chic.com
Although many public schools no longer offer vocational training shop courses, the desire to save a few bucks and build their own furniture ¬– fueled by DIY Network and Pinterest and other websites – is driving people to pick up tools and give it a try.
For two Fort Worth natives and sisters, their do-it-yourself hobby blossomed into a business and a career in Shanty2Chic.
About nine years ago, Ashley Turner and Whitney Gainer were both engaged in building new, larger homes for their families. After their successful projects, the pair started refinishing pieces of furniture to fill their homes.
Ashley is wife to John Turner and mother to three. Since building her home, she has crafted four beds, three tables, three coffee tables, two console tables, a buffet, a media storage dresser, a mantle, three desks and four nightstands, in addition to various shelves, wall treatments and accent pieces.
Whitney is the mother of five and wife to Jenson Gainer. She is not afraid to try something new, saying she has attempted almost any craft, though not always with success. While refinishing their furniture pieces, the sisters wanted to share their projects online to help others who wanted to add a do-it-yourself touch to their homes.
SHARING KNOWLEDGE
“We started a blog to document the work we were doing in our homes, and that is where the Shanty2Chic brand began,” Gainer said. “We took a try at woodworking and instantly fell in love. It was amazing being able to dream something in your head and then produce it with your own hands.”
After starting the blog, they realized their next step was to teach themselves to use SketchUp 3D modeling so they could share their furniture designs online.
In the beginning, the website was purely to share their hobby and made them no profit, but two years into it the sisters decided to go all in and turn their pastime into a full-time career.
“We monetized the site with ads at that point and started forming partnerships and sponsorships with tool and product brands we loved,” Gainer said. “Ashley was able to quit her part-time job a few weeks later and we continued to grow from there. The entire brand has been built on sweat equity.”
In the nine years since, the sisters’ Shanty2Chic brand has grown to reach a substantial social media following, include a weekly DIY YouTube show that pulls in millions of views and a partnership with Plano-based home decor store At Home.
Through Shanty2Chic, the sisters aim to inspire their followers to create beautiful, affordable furniture. Now, people can watch their DIY videos, download their project guides via their website or shop their style in At Home, where their line will feature almost 100 pieces of modern farmhouse furniture and décor.
BIG BREAK
Before the At Home partnership, Gainer and Turner said, they found themselves using a lot of the store’s products to style their renovations and their own homes. During a store promotion in Plano, the sisters met Lewis L. “Lee” Bird III, the company’s CEO/president and board chairman, who invited them to lunch at the At Home corporate office.
After meeting for a few hours, Bird told Gainer and Turner that the company would like to partner with Shanty2Chic and produce a line of their designs for the store. The entrepreneurial DIYers immediately agreed.
“It is the perfect fit for both of our brands. It actually is a very full-circle moment for us. Our grandmother helped raise us and our other three siblings when our dad left our family when we were young,” Gainer said. “She was an interior designer, and we grew up shopping with her in Garden Ridge. That was her favorite store. She would be so thrilled knowing about this partnership with At Home, and that makes us so happy.”
SOCIAL STANDOUTS
If shopping in-store doesn’t pique a fan’s interest, the Shanty2Chic website features more than 1,000 project guides that can be sorted by tools, skill level, rooms and project type; and the Shanty2Chic YouTube page features more than 80 how-to videos and renovation tours.
Turner and Gainer also frequently post photos, updates and project tutorials to their Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest pages.
“Like building furniture, we learned that social media is also very trial and error. We love inspiring other people [and] have found that social media is an amazing tool to do so,” Gainer said. “We focus on sharing consistent, good content on our social media sites just like we do on our website, and we have found that we have really grown with that approach.”
The sisters had some advice for other small-business owners trying to use social media to its fullest: Stay in tune with why people come to you, what niche service you offer, and stick with it.
“We have seen businesses really come to a complete stop on social media because they share photos that are far from the interests of their reader base,” Gainer said. “Also, we treat social media like an online magazine. Each post is content. We try to make each photo and share beautiful, but also real and relatable and, most importantly, inspiring.”
TV TRAIL
Because of their social media successes with Shanty2Chic, several production companies have contacted the sisters about the possibility of a TV show following their projects. The pair turned down those offers because they didn’t seem like the right opportunity.
And then they got an offer from a Canadian company that found them because one of its employees wanted to build a dining table and stumbled across the sisters’ website.
“Their company had long-term shows on HGTV, so we decided to give it a go,” Turner said.
During their partnership, three specials were produced that aired on both HGTV and DIY Network under the name Open Concept.
“The ratings were great, but ultimately the feedback we received from the network was that we looked too similar, spoke the same, we were too girly and not believable,” Turner said. But the sisters had no intention of changing who they were to fit a network’s idea of who they should be.
While the show did not continue, the Canadian producers who worked with Shanty2Chic have relocated to the Fort Worth-Dallas area and are now the sisters’ YouTube producers and business partners.
“Over the last several years, we have been blessed with some amazing opportunities. We have learned to never immediately say no to anything. We take each opportunity into consideration, and when we choose to move forward with one that doesn’t end like we had planned, we realize it’s all part of our journey,” Gainer said. “We love what we do. We truly don’t ever feel like we are working. We do consider ourselves strong business women, and we hope to pass this on to all of our kids.”
